


send out the mourning birds

by vulpineRaconteur



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, no dark ritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 03:38:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5401565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulpineRaconteur/pseuds/vulpineRaconteur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Queen Anora, in the wake of Alistair's sacrifice, is surprised to find common ground with the woman who didn't want her to be queen.</p><p>+</p><p>Anora and Vindira were always on opposing sides during my playthrough of Origins, but Anora is so kind to the Warden-Commander when they meet at Vigil's Keep at the start of Awkening.  I wondered where that kindness came from.</p>
            </blockquote>





	send out the mourning birds

Anora had watched the explosion on the top of Fort Drakon from her chambers.  _My old chambers_ , she had thought bitterly at the time.  That foolish Theirin boy would be moving in any day now.  A colder part of her hoped he would fall bravely in battle, and they would give her the throne back as...consolation?  No, why would they?  Some distant cousin would be dredged up and maneuvered into place.  Perhaps she'd be able to convince  _that one_  to marry her.  Alistair had not been so keen.  His heart lay somewhere else.

It came as a great surprise, then, when members of the royal guard opened her door and the Revered Mother entered the room.  “The Archdemon is defeated,” the cleric told her, “and the king is dead.”  Anora's first reaction was guilt over her idle thoughts during the battle, but no.  She shook it off: she did not need to take on another death.

“How awful,” Anora said without much feeling.  Numb.  It was the thing to say.

“It has been decided by the few banns left in the city that you should assume the throne.”

Anora blinked.  “I'm honored,” she heard herself say.  “I will see them in the audience chamber as soon as is proper.  The city will want to celebrate the end of the Blight, but we must mourn first.”  She looked to Erlina, who had been imprisoned with her mistress. “Gather what remains of the household staff and bring them here.  We must work quickly.”

 

+

 

It was some weeks before the city and the palace were ready for the coronation.  The Warden Vindira Mahariel (the "Hero of Ferelden", as the populace had deemed her) and her companions had remained in the city, to assist as they could with the reconstruction effort.  They had worked tirelessly, as so had Anora, through the mourning period that had been set.  It was time to celebrate.  Everyone put on their finest clothes and met at the palace.

Before the coronation, Anora waited in a vestibule with Warden Vindira and her party.  She hadn't yet seen most of them looking so respectable: two whole shoes each, not a spot of blood on any of them, and someone had found a clean shirt for the dwarf.  Even the golem had gotten all of its crystals shined.

The Warden's transformation was the most stunning.  Her multitude of small braids had been undone and smoothed, dark hair framing her tattooed face.  She'd gone a year without any sort of proper Grey Warden uniform, but Warden ceremonial armor had been discovered in storage somewhere and reformed to fit her small frame.  She had a Warden shield on her back as well, which Anora found strange, because she didn't recall the Warden using a shield.  She wasn't likely to forget the moment when Mahariel's battleaxe struck her father down, but the shield was familiar.

There were some speeches given before Anora and the heroes were presented.  That snake Eamon was talking, and when he said Alistair’s name, Mahariel jumped slightly, and looked down at her clenched hands.  Enchanter Wynne put a hand on the young woman’s shoulder, and Mahariel gave her a weak smile.  How disappointed she must be, Anora thought, not only losing her lover, whom she placed on the throne, but Anora, the woman she ousted, was getting the crown now instead.  Anora felt a little sick, but triumphant.

“Has the snotty one thanked it, yet?” the golem said.

“Shale, don’t,” the Warden replied, always so soft-spoken.

“I can threaten to squash it if it doesn’t thank the Warden,” the golem offered cheerfully.

“Please don’t,” she said again.

“I have wondered the same thing,” the hornless Qunari chimed in.  “She would not have her throne without your intervention.”

“ _Sten—_ ” the Warden said, and Anora felt a prickle up her spine.

“I’m ‘the snotty one’, then?” she asked, masking the jump in her pulse.

Enchanter Wynne looked at Anora with a forced smile.  “Warden Vindira vouched for you, your highness, when the banns were discussing who might take King Alistair’s place.  Considering how quickly they moved to follow her wishes, I think it unlikely they would have come to that conclusion on their own.”

“I…see,” Anora said, and she tried to draw the Warden’s eyes, but Vindira avoided her, gaze locked on the Revered Mother as she spoke to the crowd.

After the ceremony, and after speaking to all the important people who were expecting her to speak to them, Anora looked about the hall for Vindira.  She asked Erlina quietly if she knew where the Warden was, and Erlina indicated the vestibule they had waited in some minutes before.  Anora entered the small space unnoticed, and found her.

Vindira was sitting on a bench, staring at her hands as she fiddled with a small stone statuette shaped like a warrior in battle.  It seemed a silly trinket, but Anora was not about to question someone else’s grief.  “Perhaps I should save it,” Anora started, “for when your friends can hear it, but…thank you.  I don’t know why you spoke on my behalf, but I am very grateful.”

“You were the right choice,” Vindira said, light voice thick with emotion.  “You were always the only one suited to rule, I just—”  She paused, one thumb rubbing the statuette’s torso.  “I thought I had to, I thought he had to be king.  That he was m-meant for it.”

Anora placed her hands on the small of her back and leaned against the wall.  She felt for the first time just how young the Warden was, hardly twenty-two. And already she’d saved the world and had her heart broken.  It would either break her or forge her, Anora thought.  Warden Mahariel—Warden- _Commander_  Mahariel—would either be a legend in thirty years, or dead in five.

Vindira's lower lip started to quiver, and she put one hand to her eyes.  “I was supposed to die for him.”

Hot anger flashed up from Anora's chest and she scowled.  She sat beside Vindira and took her hand from her eyes.  “Listen to me, Warden-Commander.  You were supposed to do no such thing.”

“He was a king,” Vindira said.  Her wide eyes were wrinkled up with misery.  “He was a  _king_ , and I'm just a—”

“Don't you dare,” Anora cut in.  “Don't think for a second you're worth any less than him.  My father—”  Anora pursed her lips.  “My father was born in as common a family as you can imagine.  My mother's father made cabinets.  Do you think the court let me forget it?  That I was supposed to be nothing?”  She paused.  “Do you think I never believed them?”

Vindira paused all the actions of grief, and it was something Anora recognized: pity.  Understanding.  Sympathy.  Good.  She was getting through to her.

“He thought you were worth the world, Warden-Commander.  He thought you were worth dying for.  Hold onto that.”  Vindira’s mouth twisted up anew and she looked at the toy soldier in her hands.  She nodded.

Anora gave her hand a final squeeze and rose from her seat.  She was nearly through the curtain when the Warden-Commander spoke.

“Your majesty,” she said, and Anora nearly laughed at the formality of it.  She turned back and found Vindira’s eyes fixed on her.  “I’m pregnant.”

“His?”  Vindira nodded.  “Are you keeping it?”

“I don’t know,” Vindira admitted.

Anora considered her response.  Some voice whispered “the Theirin bloodline lives on” but she dismissed it.  She held Vindira’s gaze.  “Do what would be best for you, Warden-Commander.  Only you would know what that will be.”  She nodded once, out of politeness, and left her.


End file.
